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Publication, Part of

Mental Capacity Act 2005, Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (England) Quarter 2 Return, 2014-15

Official statistics
Publication Date:
Geographic Coverage:
England
Geographical Granularity:
Country, Regions, Councils with Adult Social Services Responsibilities (CASSRs), Local Authorities
Date Range:
01 Apr 2014 to 30 Sep 2014

Summary

Since 2009, care homes and hospitals have had to seek authorisation from their Local Authority if they need to deprive an individual who lacks capacity of their liberty as part of their care and/or treatment. The Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) currently collects data from Councils with Social Services Responsibilities (CASSRs or councils) on Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) at a case level on an annual basis. This information is then published in the annual report 'Mental Capacity Act, 2005, Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards'.

 

Supreme Court judgments handed down on 19 March 2014 have, anecdotally, led to a substantial increase in the number of Deprivation of Liberty (DoL) applications received by councils. As a result of this situation, the Department of Health (DH) proposed the introduction of a temporary, voluntary data collection which has been approved by the DH/ADASS Outcomes and Information Development Board (OIDB) and the HSCIC Programme and Service Delivery Board. This quarterly collection will enable stakeholders to monitor the scale of the Supreme Court judgements' impact on councils in a timely manner, and will allow for any increase in the number of DoL applications to be quantified and evidenced.

 

In order to minimise the burden on councils it was decided that only three data items were to be collected by each council on a quarterly basis including a monthly breakdown, at an aggregate level. The fields to be collected are the number of DoL application requests made, and of these, the number of requests granted and not granted.

 

Data will be collected on a quarterly basis, covering the period April 2014 - September 2015. This release relates to quarter 1 of the collection, which covers 1 April - 30 June 2014, and quarter 2, covering 1 July to 30 September 2014. The data shows the position on 14 October 2014, when the returns were submitted, but which may need to be updated by councils as further applications are completed. A comparison to the 2013-14 'Mental Capacity Act, 2005, Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards' annual report is also included.

 

Further details are included in the Resources section below.

Highlights

Quarter 2 2014-15

  • 132 out of 152 councils (87 per cent of all councils) submitted data for quarter 2 (1 July - 30 September 2014).
  • The total number of DoL applications in quarter 2 2014-15 was 31,300.
  • During this quarter there were 11,000 DoL applications in July, 9,800 applications in August and 10,400 applications in September from 132 submitting councils.
  • Of the 31,300 applications  9,400 were granted (30 per cent), 2,400 not granted (8 per cent) and 19,400  (62 per cent) not yet signed off by the Supervisory Body or were withdrawn.
  • In 2013-14 the total number of applications for these 132 councils was 12,500, of which 57 per cent (7,100) were granted, 40 per cent (5,000) were not granted and 3 per cent (400) were not yet signed off by the Supervisory Body or were withdrawn.

In Point 4 the total number of DoL applications in quarter 2 2014-15 does not equate to the total number of DoL applications granted and not granted as some applications, as of 14 October 2014, were not yet signed off by the Supervisory Body or were withdrawn.

Point 5 relates to those applications that were not yet signed off by the Supervisory Body or were withdrawn as of 31 March 2014, the end of the submission period.

Numbers are rounded to the nearest 100.

Percentages may not total 100 due to rounding.

Resources

Related Links

Last edited: 23 June 2020 10:43 am